perspective.

And, as I’m sure you’ve all noticed, my response to this perspective is to use said metal rectangle of lights to tell other people about the metal rectangle of lights. I’m fairly sure there’s a definition of insanity in there somewhere.

And now I will describe in a figure the enlightenment or unenlightenment of our nature:–Imagine human beings living in a school; they have been there from childhood, having their necks and legs chained. In the school there is a computer, and between the computer and the prisoners an LCD display. Inside the computer are databases, who generate various tables and visualizations. ‘A strange parable,’ he said, ‘and strange captives.’ They are ourselves, I replied; and they see only the shadows of the images which the computer throws on the LCD; to these they give names, and if we add speakers to the LCD, the sounds of Skype calls will seem to proceed from the computer. Suppose now that you suddenly send them out to field work and make them look with pain and grief to themselves at the real images; will they believe them to be real? Will not their eyes be dazzled, and will they not try to get away from the light to something which is already in machine-readable format?